“60 Minutes,” the flagship news magazine on CBS is currently in a reputation trough. Recent stories about its bad reporting on Benghazi , the Amazon puff piece that broke the drone delivery news, and now a soft story about the National Security Administration have momentarily dimmed its traditional luster.
While praising “60 Minutes’ for its legacy, longtime New York Times media critic Bill Carter takes them to task in a very balanced piece. This is type of commentary/opinion written by a serious journalist is very valuable. As a former journalist who always tried to improve my craft, I appreciated good editors and critics. Of course, it’s a profession full of fairly thin skinned folks with strong egos, but that’s no excuse for not paying attention to well-intentioned and constructive feedback.
Look for “60 Minutes” to bounce back from the current lapses and return to its prior high levels of strong investigative news magazine reporting.
It’s an understatement to say that CommCore clients don’t usually like being profiled by “60 Minutes,” which continues to provide more probing journalism than most other broadcast and cable news programs. We would counsel them that its recent lapses in accuracy and adversarial tone likely do not indicate a long term softening of “60 Minutes’” standards. As Carter concludes, “’60 Minutes’ is a calling, not an assignment, and the program should not be the kind of outfit that leaves its skepticism at the door to get inside.”